personal finance in a coupon blog

Green is a pretty awesome color to see in your wallet, but it's also a great color when associated with our humble little planet. Why can't the two go hand in hand? Actually--they can! Not only is being green great for the pocket book, and the body Earth, it can also be pretty easy too.

Here are a couple of quick tips to put that beautiful green in your pocket and do Planet Earth a little good.

I recently came across this list of free things to do in Las Vegas. While it's a good primer for a first-timer, I found it to be full of the obvious: the lions at MGM, the dancing waters at the Bellagio, the Sirens show at Treasure Island. Ho hum. I can only stare at a couple of bored felines for so long and don't get me started on those fountains-- am I the only one in the world who hates those things?

You Savings.com readers deserve more imaginative lists. With that in mind, I present Heather's Lucky 7 List of the Best Cheap/Free Things in Vegas!

At Savings.com, we celebrate coupons on a daily basis. But we were still stoked to hear that September is National Coupon Month. We're not surprised that an entire month had been dedicated to coupons--given the steady rise of usage we've witnessed over the last months.

It takes a profound kind of modern-day alchemy to make it through the day in this shrinking post-industrial world. Every morning people wake up just to jump into their cars and rush barking mad to work, juggle raising families and tending to careers, or deal with the responsibilities of winning or losing the bread in this economy. And recent college graduates have to confront their disaffection toward their expensive education, with no apparent reward of a job.

No doubt, people's stress levels are on the rise and health levels are on the dive.

Making a giant lifestyle change to improve your health is sometimes a decision you make out of duress, nudging from family, or the numbers taunting you on the scale. Whatever the impetus, you own it and need to feel the most comfortable to make a change.

Last week I posted the top three ways to manage your own health care. Here are three more things you might want to consider when restructuring a lifestyle regimen:

Happy Labor Day! Although it seems an oxymoron to use the word "labor" in the name of a holiday that's usually a blissful reprieve from work, that doesn't prevent us from enjoying the day off. What exactly is Labor Day? You might not know this, but it actually started as a Canadian holiday.

From trusty Wikipedia,

"The holiday originated in Canada out of labor disputes ("Nine-Hour Movement")...In 1882, American labor leader Peter J. McGuire witnessed one of these labor festivals in Toronto. Inspired by events in Toronto, he returned the USA, to New York and organized the first American 'labor day' on September 5 of the same year."

In addition to celebrating the drive and ingenuity of the American worker, let's face it: Labor Day is a day celebrating the de facto end of summer and transition into fall. They say that spring is the time for "spring cleaning." Well, fall may be the time for "fall saving." Chances are you spent a tad more than you wanted to for your summer vacation, so now you're looking for ways to cut costs before the holiday shopping season.

Here are some tips to help you do just that:

As the Summer savings and sales slowly start to come to an end, you may fear that Fall prices will soon be sweeping through your bank account. Hah! Here at Savings.com we laugh in the face of such fears... This week's Top 10 Deals are proof that the Fall season does, in fact, bode well for finances with scintillating savings that will make you smile. Come on, now. We want that full 100-watt grin!

With discounts like these, there's just no excuse for skimping on retail revelry.

On Monday you heard from Loren, our CEO, about how you can help take the wind out of the sails of scammy advertisers. He offered this basic guideline for weeding through the multitude of messages that bombard us everyday:

Question: Which companies are spending the most on advertising?

Answer: The ones that are making the most money off of you.

This week's roundup is in the same vein, and should give you some more useful knowledge of how to avoid getting had:

With the news of unemployment rising to 9.7%, this year Labor Day is more of a time to be grateful for HAVING a job rather than celebrating a day off from one. In the midst of the barbecues and bargain shopping that the holiday has become known for, I thought I'd take a moment to muse about what this Monday is really about:

Working and workers.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American will change careers 2-5 times and hold more than 10 different jobs during their working years. I thought it would be interesting to journey back in time with my Savings.com co-workers with this simple query:

"What was your first job?"

Even though Labor Day originated in Canada, Americans have taken the concept and run with it ever since it became a federal holiday in 1884. While its original intent was to recognize the labor workers with a day of parades and celebrations, Labor Day weekend has now become synonymous with barbecues, beach days, and major sales.

In the spirit of the latter, here are our top 10 Labor Day coupons. These deals are good this weekend only, so be sure to jump on it!

Gamers can rejoice: maybe it's due to the recession, maybe the competition is getting fierce, but the bottom line: lower prices on gaming consoles. According to a recent article in the L.A. Times, price slashing of gaming consoles is the latest tactic being used to boost sluggish sales.

Writers Alex Pham and Ben Fritz hypothesize:

"Who will win this price war? Consumers."

Earlier this week I posted about ad scams that were proliferating on the Internet and television. While you might not fall prey to the whole cash for gold scheme, chances are you have been influenced by advertising. After all, the goal of advertising is to get you to buy something.

The question is: Do you really need it?

There's an ongoing debate over whether college sports or pro sports are better. Some people argue that pro players don't try nearly as hard as college players because they aren't playing to get signed to pro team (obviously because they're already on one). Others argue that the reason it seems they don't try as hard is that they're playing at a higher level of competition.

I personally agree with the former assertion and think this problem could be solved by lowering pro athlete salaries. According to Blake Oestriecher of Tigerweekly.com, the economy is impacting the pro sports world. I think this is a good thing.

Here's why: